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Many people contributed to today's launch of the redesigned Radio 4 web site, some over several years - not least Leigh Aspin and his Radio 4 interactive team and the many engineers from the various Ö÷²¥´óÐã technology departments who dreamt up and then built the fantastically useful catalogue of Ö÷²¥´óÐã programmes.

We'll try to acknowledge more of these people here as the new look beds in and as we get used to the new features. In the meantime, the slideshow shows the site's designers and 'client side developers' from Ö÷²¥´óÐã Audio & Music interactive - led by - and 's team from Radio 4 Interactive, whose job it is to look after the site now that it's live.

• Jem Stone has put screenshots of (from the ) in a set at flickr.
• Twitter users are .
• Follow on Twitter for more site updates.

The Radio 4 website was in need of an overhaul and today - after a lot of work and audience research - comes a new one. The disappearing site was rather cluttered and things were often difficult to find. Under the surface the edifice was kept together by increasingly frayed technology. So I hope you find the new one easier to use, that you use it more often and that you can find what you want more quickly.

There's one new feature in particular which I hope you will find rewarding - the topical subjects area on our new homepage. You can choose one of the individual subjects/topics listed - then click and you will be linked to current R4 material on that subject (Try Barack Obama or Recession). Similar links will appear on many of our new programme pages. At the moment we can't do that with as many subjects as we'd like - but we intend to build on what we have and add many more . Doubtless there will be some problems - but we will iron them out. But for the time being - enjoy it and I know that R4's interactive team would welcome constructive feedback.

• Follow on Twitter for Radio 4 news, site updates and interesting retweets.
• from the morning of the big day.

This is a short post to let you know that we're almost ready to relaunch the Radio 4 website and so you can expect the change to take place on Tuesday morning. Please bear with us on the day as we bed down the new site. There are bound to be some issues and things to get used to. A site like this is a huge undertaking but we are confident it will be deliver a much improved service.

Thanks again for the useful feedback we've received so far on this blog, the message board and via email. Once you've had a chance to get used to the new site, please let us know what you think, so that we can build on this foundation and improve the service for you.

• Leigh's previous posts about the redesign are here (9 March) and here (19 March).
• The picture is '' by , used .

Steve Bowbrick, editor, says: when the new site launches tomorrow, take a minute to tell the world what you think. Twitter using the hash tag , take photos of where you are when you see the new site and share them with the same tag, write a blog post or record a response. Follow on Twitter and we'll keep you up to date.

Assembled using .

Follow on Twitter for Radio 4 news, site updates and interesting retweets.

Evan Davis has won the for best radio presenter. This is not a surprise - but nonetheless thoroughly good news. He has been terrific on Today where he came for a one year stint - but everyone wants him to stay and he is staying. And although no longer the Ö÷²¥´óÐã's economics editor he can still bring his huge knowledge of the subject to the Today feast - and many of his interviews are richly informed by his economics background. And in a year where there's no shortage of economic subjects.

On The Bottom Line (podcast) (Radio 4, 1730 Saturday) his expertise, reputation and presence means we get very good people from business to talk about a wide range of subjects - and we should not forget his brief moment of stardom as a comic for Comic Relief.

• The Guardian's and their .
• The .
  
• Evan on Stand-up With the Stars.
  
• Evan's biography from the Ö÷²¥´óÐã Press Office.
  

Cancelling a radio programme at Radio 4 is rarely easy to do. Cancelling a radio programme that's the last one on Radio 4 aimed at a particular audience was never going to gain universal approval - or anything like it.

Last week's announcement that Go4It will come off the air in May met with the kind of dismay and indignation that change at Radio 4 can prompt.

Gillian Reynolds, one of speech radio's most prominent voices in the public prints, was very disapproving. She doesn't hold back:

Mark Damazer, Radio 4's Controller, says he is sad to be the executioner of Go4it, the last remnant of public-service broadcasting for children on analogue radio. He should be ashamed.

Reynolds develops the idea that the Ö÷²¥´óÐã "...has an obligation to provide considered speech, serious narrative and structured content for children." But like other commentators, she thinks kids' media is too noisy: "They shout, they pout, they're matey, inducements to switch-off for listeners of any age."

In she connects the announcement with the week's other big story:

Twenty-two thousand young listeners will have to get used to losing Go4it. Perhaps if it had once employed Jade Goody as guest presenter it might have been more in tune with Ö÷²¥´óÐã editorial policy.

She finishes with a message that's even tougher than her first:

It makes me wonder who is running Ö÷²¥´óÐã radio nowadays and if, in their hearts, they understand it, value it. If they don't realise how important it is to learn to listen, then radio is done for.

The quotes from Mark Damazer's blog entry. The twist here is an exclusive quote from , children's TV celebrity and now campaigner for better kids' TV:

Children's radio has been neglected by the Ö÷²¥´óÐã. In the 1990s, programmes and series were moved round from network to network. Go4it was the last show of its kind but children never came to it because it was hidden away among reams of adult output.

Catherine Bennett, , is, if anything, tougher than Reynolds. She uses all of her 1200 words - on the paper's web site - to get a lot off her chest about children's broadcasting in Britain. It's old-fashioned public opprobrium:

...if anyone has trained children to believe that entertainment is relentless noise and stupidity it is the Ö÷²¥´óÐã itself.

And there's plenty more where that came from, although I'll spare you because it's mostly about TV (Radio 7's extensive children's output dodges a bullet and isn't mentioned at all).

In The Spectator, Kate Chisholm is more resigned. She on The Today Programme and highlights his prescription for children's radio:'Make more dramas, at least one a week, and involve all the family...' She ends with a wonderfully ambitious goal for the network:

At a single stroke, Radio Four could enhance our endangered family life and develop in children the vital art of listening.

The bloggers, in general, are more understanding of the decision to axe Go4It. , who edits a computer magazine by day, :

Go4It always felt like one of those programmes that was only on because it was the Ö÷²¥´óÐã and the Ö÷²¥´óÐã has to do minority things, so its disappearance from the schedules as of the end of spring won't be a great surprise. But just because 'it's the Ö÷²¥´óÐã' surely isn't sufficient justification for putting a programme like Go4It onto a mainstream network like Radio 4 when none of the intended audience is listening.

And Olly Benson, who blogs about young people and education, :

Why not do a show about children and young people's issues, even if it isn't aimed at them? And, why not use young people to make the show? There are thousands of young people involved in media projects throughout the country ... and there are some really brilliant audio projects that deserve a wider audience.

As ever, at Radio 4, the programmes are important.

• You can listen to the item from Today .
  

is an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology. We've asked Alexandra Feachem, who produces science programmes for Radio 4, to mark the day with a post about a woman in science she admires.

As the Season Producer for the recent Big Bang Day on Ö÷²¥´óÐã Radio 4, I spent two years travelling to and from , The European Laboratory for Particle Physics, just outside Geneva, the site of the largest and most ambitious science experiment ever undertaken. Here, deep below the French/Swiss countryside, in a 27km long circular tunnel, lies a monster particle accelerator, that has come to be known as the Big Bang Machine. When fully up and running by the end of this year, the will be smashing tiny subatomic particles together at speeds just shy of the speed of light, and in the process, recreating conditions found at the very dawn of our universe, just a billionth of a second after the big bang. It is in fact the ultimate boy's toy, and, as one would imagine in a place that is the undisputed Mecca for physics and engineering, a first glance around the halls and corridors of CERN does seem to indicate a prolific number of men.

But early on in my visits, I went to see one of the greatest of all the engineering feats at CERN - the detector. Here amongst the vast steel construction, endless wires and machinery, and numerous workmen in heavy boots and hard hats, I met Pippa Wells, one of the most senior figures on the ATLAS project. As we stood in the vast cathedral-sized chamber, some 100 metres underground, that houses ATLAS, Pippa stood out instantly, not only for being one of the few females we came across on that day, but also for the enthusiasm and commitment she has shown to a project that she has dedicated the best part of her working life to. Pippa is in fact responsible for one of the most sophisticated and vital parts of ATLAS engineering - the inner detector. Like a huge digital camera, this device will be photographing and recording the big bangs, as they happen, some 40 million times per second, and in the process, will help reveal what the earliest moments of our universe may have looked like.

You can see how, as a young physics student in the mid 80s, Pippa was first drawn to the work at CERN. But it has been a real labour of love - having been some 20 years in the making and with many ups and downs along the way. But as Pippa told me, the potential of this work to answer some of the most fundamental questions about our universe makes it irresistible. It has also offered her a unique learning experience, not just scientifically and technically, but also culturally, working as she does with people from more than 35 different countries, who have also come to CERN with the same ambition and drive to learn more about the world in which we live. I should also point out, that in between tackling some of the most difficult questions posed by humanity - Pippa has also managed to squeeze in 3 children, including twins. She is the ultimate multi-tasker. I asked her if entering such a male dominated field had ever put her off taking up physics as a career? She told me, "I have always been fascinated by particle physics because of what it can tell us about how the universe works. I was fully aware that science in general is male dominated. That didn't put me off, because I was sure I had just as much right to study physics as anyone else."

The physics and ambition of the experiment at CERN is pretty awe inspiring stuff, but as I discovered when I met Pippa and her colleagues, so are the people that work there.

• Wells plays violin in the .
• The Ada Lovelace Day and all the day's blog posts arranged .
• Pippa Wells (and other CERN scientists) in The Telegraph.
• News from at CERN.
• Listen to the edition of In Our Time about Ada Lovelace.
• Radio 4's Big Bang Day web site.
• A about women in fundamental physics.
• The Science Museum's .

Picture from .

On Saturday I was told The / Othello with Lenny Henry in the title role is coming to the West End in London in the autumn. I am particularly thrilled.

I saw it on its last night at the Playhouse and liked it a great deal. (It is currently ). I thought Lenny was terrific. In his normal comedy incarnation I had not noticed just how good a voice he has - a big and very clear bass. I caught every word of his Othello and felt keenly - and in turns - Othello's power, insecurity, jealousy and rage.

There is an intimate Radio 4 connection to this production and to the casting of Lenny Henry. Three years ago our celebrated documentary maker, Simon Elmes, approached Lenny and asked him whether he would do a programme for Radio 4 about his long-lasting aversion to Shakespeare. Lenny - who by then had begun to see the point of Shakepeare - agreed and together they made a terrific programme ('Lenny and Will') which showed Lenny grappling hard with - among other things - iambic pentameter, breathing and timing.

Those taking part included Sir Peter Hall, Dame Judi Dench, Sir Trevor Nunn, Adrian Lester and Barrie Rutter, director of Northern Broadsides. In part two, Barrie talked to Lenny about how best to act Othello's last speech - as he dies. Barrie was impressed by Lenny's efforts and suggested he should have a go for real at Othello - on stage. Last year Lenny succumbed to Barrie's offer.

Lenny agreed to do keep an audio diary for a few months as he studied the text and rehearsed with the company. This formed the spine of a programme ('Lenny Henry Plays Othello') that we transmitted just before the run began in Leeds in February. It was clear that Lenny was mostly very frightened, on occasion euphoric, and sometimes ill (his blood pressure shot up). We trailed the programme of course - but no more than we trail a top priority in any other week. I was pleased that a Radio 4 project featuring one of Britain's great comedians had been transformed into so newsworthy an arts story.

I was nervous about the reviews, and relieved that most of them were very supportive of Lenny's efforts. We did nothing to choreograph the considerable coverage of Lenny's Othello by the newspapers and other broadcasters. Nor did I force other Radio 4 programmes (including ) to do the story. Indeed I was sometimes irritated by reports or articles that failed to mention the R4 genealogy of the production. But we were nevertheless criticised by some for the amount of news columns or broadcasting minutes devoted to previewing or reviewing the production.

There was a Feedback item about all of this with Simon Elmes - and I note that one or two of you on the blog cite the February programme as an example of Radio 4 overkill. I hope I have now explained how it all came about and why so many of us here are delighted with the way it's turned out. I am not shy in recommending the production. And I am looking to see how to run all three of Lenny's R4 Shakespeare programmes before the West End run begins - and, yes, they will be repeats!

Listen to Lenny Henry Plays Othello:

• Details of .
• at West Yorkshire Playhouse in February
• Benedict Nightingale from The Times reviews the production .
• Miranda Sawyer says , in The Observer.
• Lenny Henry's .

We're now ready to reveal the new Radio 4 website design. These annotated screenshots take you through some example pages from the new site with an explanation of their main features. Let me give you some background to this work which is one of the most complex redesigns in the Ö÷²¥´óÐã portfolio.

The design takes the colours and shapes of Radio 4's brand toolkit as its starting point. Our team worked with this toolkit to create a design that adds depth and impact to our programme pages, without distracting from the content - white background space and a subtle emphasis of the information hierarchy help to present the programme information clearly. Agreeing a design route is usually the point at which all stakeholders want to have their say and this project followed that honourable tradition.

It was all the more interesting because this is the first time that the full Radio 4 brand toolkit has been incorporated within the main website design which was a big challenge. It is thanks to the flair and professionalism of our User Experience & Design team, working with our supportive colleagues in Marketing, that this result was achieved. You'll notice when we relaunch that different colours are emphasised within certain genres - red is picked out on our news programme pages, yellow for comedy, green for drama and readings.

Some of you will be familiar with the Ö÷²¥´óÐã's programmes website (bbc.co.uk/programmes). At relaunch, we're adopting these programme pages with some significant changes to template layout, design and some new features (as described on our sample pages). Not only will these pages provide a more consistent user-experience across Radio 4, they will in time enable us to create useful links between related content right across the Ö÷²¥´óÐã. (And there are other features and services that we'll be able to add in the months to come.) As we head towards launch, we're negotiating the challenge of making the specific demands of Radio 4 programmes work with this pan-Ö÷²¥´óÐã system - this is going well, on the whole, and we'll be grateful for your feedback to help us to fine-tune this at launch.

I'd also like to highlight the introduction of 'tagged' episodes, which will create a new way of navigating to programmes - by subject. At launch, you'll find 'tags' (keywords) on programme pages and a selection of topical tags on our homepage. Clicking on a tag will take you to a page which brings together all recent Radio 4 programmes related to that keyword (eg all programmes about Barack Obama or Climate Change or Asthma).

As we build up an archive of tagged programmes, our rich audio resource will become more accessible. In the audience research we undertook at the start of this project, lighter Radio 4 listeners in particular said that enabling them to "browse by subject" would be the most useful service we could provide to help them to find and enjoy more Radio 4 programmes. I'm eager for us to build towards this service from launch.

We're still just about on course to launch at the end of this month, barring any unforeseen problems, but have a lot of code-tweaking and editorial checking to undertake during the next week or so. I'll let you know when we're ready to make the switch. In the meantime, I'll look forward to reading your reactions to the screenshots.

• This is Leigh's second post on the redesign. The first is here.

Follow on Twitter for Radio 4 news, site updates and interesting retweets.

The demise of Go 4 It is in some ways a sad moment. It is not merely the loss of a programme - but the loss of a specific, regularly scheduled attempt to engage children with Radio 4 and the joys of radio in general. I know some will think we should persist in broadcasting the programme on the grounds that it is the Ö÷²¥´óÐã's job to cater for small audiences - particularly when the market won't provide anything.

But the problem is that the children's audience for the programme was just so small that the market failure argument, which I respect, does not in this instance hold water. At one point last year (the impartial body that measures radio audiences) indicated that more or less no children at all were tuning in. It's true that the figure rose a little in the last quarter of 2008 - but over a long period it's been horribly clear that we are making a perfectly good programme - but for an adult audience. The average age of the audience is in the 50s.

Of course it might be desirable for children to switch to the intelligent items planned and produced by the team - but I can't pretend that children are interested in this sort of radio when they largely are not. The omnipresence of images is a fact of life - like the existence of 24 hour news channels or mobile phones. And that's where children now turn. That is not the case for adults - where Radio 4's audience has help up well over many years and millions prefer it to TV.

I feel some nostalgia for an era where Listen With Mother had an audience of millions (though I was not brought up with it and still found the joys of speech radio) but I do not think that the world has gone to the dogs because of the absence of this kind of radio. By all accounts the Ö÷²¥´óÐã's children's TV channels (CBeebies and CÖ÷²¥´óÐã) provide a good service. That much is said by the recent Ö÷²¥´óÐã Trust report on Ö÷²¥´óÐã childrens' output - which is also interesting on the subject of children's radio.

We will be trying to get children interested in some plays we will run on Radio 4 throughout the year and we will be transmitting them in the mainstream Radio 4 schedule when we think they might be around to listen. We have already commissioned Roald Dahl's Matilda for next Christmas, Black Hearts in Battersea, Emil and the Detectives and The Wizard of Oz. For Clearly we need to aim the trailing at the parents too. They are probably still the 'gatekeepers.'

We will still be broadcasting children's radio programmes on Ö÷²¥´óÐã Radio 7 and hope that by moving the three hour bloc from the afternoons to the mornings we will get more of a children's audience - but that's far from being guaranteed. For older children there will be an hour of readings every weekday afternoon. They are currently transmitted in the mornings.

• Ben Dowell on the demise of Go 4 It.
• The Ö÷²¥´óÐã Press Office announces changes to children's radio programmes.
  
• From the archives, The Telegraph of a one year trial for Go 4 It in 2001.
• Martin Kelner, The Guardian's radio columnist .
• Radio 7's Big Toe Books site.
• Discussion of the changes on the Radio 4 Messageboard

UPDATE:

• Evan Davis about the fate of children's radio on the Today programme.

The Guardian about our decision not to commission a short piece, written by Caryl Churchill, about the recent war in Gaza.

The piece ran for a fortnight in February at The Royal Court Theatre in London - and it was sent to us, unsolicited, to consider. It was powerful but I did not think it right to commission it.

Why? The Ö÷²¥´óÐã's obligation to impartiality is not restricted to factual programmes only. It apples to drama. That may seem odd to some - on the grounds that we are not dealing with matters of observed fact - but nevertheless if the Ö÷²¥´óÐã set aside its impartiality concerns when dealing with fiction we could end up with a particular 'take' on an issue that would amount to partisanship.

I quote from the Ö÷²¥´óÐã's Editorial Guidelines:

Impartiality & drama
When drama realistically portrays living people or contemporary situations in a controversial way it has an obligation to be accurate and to do justice to the main facts. If the drama is accurate but is a partisan or partial portrayal of a controversial subject we should normally only proceed if we believe that its insight and excellence justify the platform offered. Even so we must ensure that its nature is clearly signposted to our audience. When a drama is likely to prove particularly controversial we must consider whether to offer an alternative view in other output on the same service."

I do not wish to suggest that this is cut-and-dried. Drama should be able to provoke, to explore political subjects and to stretch the mind and imagination in ways that are different to news or documentary output. But it was my judgement that this particular piece did not work as a stand-alone short drama.

• at The Royal Court Theatre, 6-21 February 2009.
• The Royal Court production reviewed by Michael Billington , Christopher Hart and by Dominic Cavendish . (links added by SB, editor).
  

UPDATE

• Steve Hewlett discusses Radio 4's decision with playwright David Edgar on The Media Show, 18 March 2009.

I've just been listening to a programme on Belfast transmitted last Monday - Walls and Peace - presented by Gerry Anderson. It was made before the but it's a very revealing and disturbing portrait of a Belfast phenomenon - the many walls that divide Protestants and Roman Catholics.

It Is not a comfortable listen. The walls are not merely historical relics from The Troubles. They continue to be built. The programme has contributions from people who want very much for the walls to come down - but does not shirk from describing the abnormality of some aspects of Belfast Life. Gerry Anderson's bewilderment and carefully expressed anger shines through.

The programme strips away clichés, is full of surprises (watch out for the poem in the middle of the programme) and has a presenter who palpably knows what he's talking about. It's my favourite programme of the week thus far - though not entirely cheerful.

Listen to the programme:

• Elizabeth Mahoney in The Guardian
• So did Miranda Sawyer,
• , by , shows one of the Belfast peace walls and the kind of fortification to a house that's called a 'Belfast Conservatory' in the programme (used ).

Rounding off a really exciting day up on the bridge at HMS Radio 4, Angus Deayton's contribution may have been the shortest - at a bit less that two minutes on-air - but I think he sounds most like a real continuity announcer of the five comedians.

It was fascinating to listen to the comics doing their thing in such an exalted location and I'm not at all surprised that the nerves got to one or two of them quite audibly. All five were hilarious and have probably raised a lot of money for Comic Relief.

A full set of pictures - all taken by presentations producer Stan Was - are . There's also a , for photographs taken by Radio 4 people.

And, to finish, some credit for these blog posts: all of the audio files were put together in double-quick time by operations assistant Tom Rogers. Katherine Campbell and Kyren Burns on the Radio 4 Interactive team solved many technical problems to make it all happen. Thanks to them and to all the other Radio 4 staff who made this such a fun day.

Nicely spoken, polite, respectful: Liza Tarbuck's spot - between the end of Feedback and the start of the afternoon play (another in the brilliant Ö÷²¥´óÐã Science Fiction drama season) - must have been a relief for the continuity team. No threat of a harassment suit from the Met Office at least (you'll need to listen to Paul Whitehouse's contribution to understand that).

I huddled in a corner of the studio for part of Liza's segment and it was very exciting, not least because of the continuity royalty in the room with us: Chris Aldridge and Carolyn Brown. Being in the continuity studio at Radio 4 feels a bit like being on the bridge of a battleship on an important (but very calm) mission. Liza captained the ship with aplomb. Her pictures have been added to the group and you can listen to her breezy contribution here:

Audio edited by Tom Rogers.

The 35 minutes bewteen the end of You & Yours and Feedback at 1330 were definitely the most chaotic in the continuity studio today - just ask Tom Schafernaker, hapless weatherman, whose 1255 forecast was riotously cut to ribbons in support of Comic Relief.

Pictures of Whitehouse have been added to the '' group at flickr.com. You can hear the whole thing, including poor Tom's somewhat inclement forecast and a burst of , here:

Audio edited by Tom Rogers.

, newsreader, listening from home to Arthur Smith for his stint in the booth, says ()

Hate to talk myself out of a job, but would like Arthur Smith to be on announcing the programmes every day please

He did crash spectacularly but nobody seems too upset...

There are more pictures (taken by Stan Was who's producing the day's events for the presentations department) from 'Comics in Con' and here's a recording of Arthur's time at the mic:

Audio edited by Tom Rogers.

Jo was the first of five fearless comedians-turned-announcers to enter the Radio 4 studios for 'Comics in Con', Radio 4's most unpredictable contribution to Red Nose Day. Listen to Radio 4 between now and PM today and you'll hear, in turn, Jo herself, Arthur Smith (crashing the pips as I type this), Paul Whitehouse, Liza Tarbuck and Angus Deayton - all tackling the famously difficult task of linking radio programmes. Here's a handy compilation of Jo's bit of the day's fun and games. More will follow as the day unfolds.

Audio edited by Tom Rogers.

Rory Cellan-Jones, Ö÷²¥´óÐã Technology Correspondent, is wandering the land wearing a red nose and taking photographs of otherwise innocent people wearing theirs. His goal is to for Comic Relief today and, as of about five minutes ago, he was half way there. Inevitably he's twittering the whole experience (click to read his tweets so far and to read tweets from others about Rory's day), as he goes. Your task is to identify and, of course, to .

Some more Radio 4 comedy is transferring to Ö÷²¥´óÐã television. There is a long tradition of some of R4's best shows (but by no means all of them) moving across - and thus we wave farewell (for a while at least) to Dave Gorman's 'Genius' (which will start on Ö÷²¥´óÐã2 on 20th March) and Marcus Brigstocke's 'I've Never Seen Star Wars' which will start on Ö÷²¥´óÐã4 tonight at 2230.

It is hard not to have mixed feelings about this. Genius was doing a great job on Monday nights at 6.30 (with its repeat on Sunday at midday) - a big slot - and Star Wars is a very clever new R4 format. But it's always been part of R4's role to give new comedy ideas a chance and then let them flourish elsewhere and if it strengthens the Ö÷²¥´óÐã Comedy portfolio on TV - so be it. I need also to acknowledge that the financial rewards are greater on TV than on R4. We do pay -- but it's not a fortune.

The transfers have been going on for a while - think Tony Hancock, Goodness Gracious Me, Little Britain - and many others. But the principal job for a R4 comedy is not to be an experiment for a putative TV show - but rather to entertain the R4 audience at the time it's broadcast. A 6.30 comedy will be listened to by about 1.3 million people and if you take the Monday and Friday 'biggies' like Clue, Just a Minute, The News Quiz or The Now Show - which are all repeated - then the total audience is more than two million per edition. Not many Ö÷²¥´óÐã 2 programmes get that size of audience.

But one good thing about the Ö÷²¥´óÐã Comedy universe is that there is a two way & continued flow of off-air talent between TV & R4. So although I may feel as if Radio 4 had lost a show we are still able to keep the talent and minds on both radio and television. A brilliant example is the continued radio and TV life of Mitchell & Webb.

And as shows transfer - so the gaps left should be filled by talented producers and other ideas. Which means the "never-going-anywhere biggies" are balanced by a healthy churn of new ideas.

• There was a good discussion on all of this on Front Row on Wednesday - featuring Messrs Brigstocke and Gorman - and also Emily Bell of The Guardian. Listen again here (podcast). Mark Lawson also about this in The Guardian.
• Posts about Genius and a from Radio 4 to Ö÷²¥´óÐã2. Dave's .
• A adapted for television from Wikipedia.

This week the Ö÷²¥´óÐã's Science Fiction drama season, with programmes going out on Radio 4, Radio 3, Radio 7 and Ö÷²¥´óÐã 4, is getting a fair amount of attention in the media and on the blogs.

Kate Chisholm, in The Spectator, from last week's adaptation of Iain M. Banks' The State of the Art (part of the Ö÷²¥´óÐã's Science Fiction drama season):

A few electronic whooshes were all that could be summoned up as Linter and Sma dashed about the universe in what was otherwise a beautifully directed production (by Nadia Molinari), their voices echoing eerily through the ether.

Listen here.

Moira Petty is baffled by the Ö÷²¥´óÐã Science Fiction season:

I'm no great authority on the genre but much of radio's sci-fi season seems simply bonkers. Although it began promisingly with HG Wells' The Time Machine, the output - in particular the original plays - seems to be pitched somewhere between farce and a low-budget made-for-TV film with humankind represented in either comic book or two-dimensional form.

Gillian Reynolds has more patience with both the season and with Sci-Fi in general:

What makes it so popular is how it sets up alternatives, challenges assumptions, stretches the bounds of what we know into what is still credible.

She particularly liked Iain M. Banks' The State of the Art and Kim Newman's Cry Babies but she thought chilly Woman's Hour serial The Death of Grass

...sounded more like an old Goon Show than a glimpse of an apocalypse

The Ö÷²¥´óÐã Science Fiction season home page.

And in non-Sci-Fi content, Feminist blogger Charlotte , objects to Jenni Murray's objectification of a male prostitute on Wednesday's Woman's Hour:

The radio show irritated me (not least because some woman tried to insinuate that anyone who didn't support the commodification of sexuality and prostitution was blind to a woman's right to say Yes) but the dismissive tone which eradicated any prostitutes (sic) option to be a real person or anything other than a sex object irked me more

Listen here.

Mark Lawson, a bi-media heavyweight if there ever was one, on the financial necessities behind yet another Radio 4-to-television crossover - this time for I've Never Seen Star Wars - :

I've Never Seen Star Wars is a glimpse of the economic future of broadcasting: a series where it's irrelevant whether you see it or not.

Listen to the programme here.

As Interactive Editor for Radio 4, I'm responsible for the content of our digital services. I'm joining the blog this week to tell you about a relaunch of the Radio 4 website scheduled for the end of this month.

This is something I've thought we should do for some time. The current site is about 7 years old - ancient in web terms. Its design and much of its supporting technology have become dated and won't be able to deliver all the great services that we want to bring you. The site has also become more crowded and consequently less easy to use as new services (podcasts, for example) have been bolted on.

Whenever an established website is relaunched, it is disruptive for its users. It's rather like a supermarket re- opening after a refit: it looks brighter and you assume people must have made changes for a good reason but it takes you a couple of visits to find all of your favourite items again. You need a good reason to justify that disruption.

And there will always be more that we could do to enhance programme sites, or new technologies just a few months away that we could wait for. Developing a website is a job that is never completed.

The most important reason for relaunching now is that some of our core services just aren't working as well as they should. For instance, you've understandably been frustrated when a technical problem has prevented you from listening online to your chosen programme. The current website's relatively old and patchwork technology is the cause of some of the problems we've experienced in recent months and applying sticking plaster will only work for so long.

While your feedback has been reasonably positive over the last few years, we've also picked up a trend (both from the emails you send and more formal audience research) that you're finding the site a little less easy to use and we've had quite a few comments about the site feeling "cluttered", especially our homepage. I recall one user's more extreme response to the question "what do you dislike about this website?". "Everything except the audio" he or she replied.

There are several advances in design and technology on bbc.co.uk that we can take advantage of. At relaunch, we'll be moving most of the site to a wider page template (compare the width of the Radio 4 homepage with the Ö÷²¥´óÐã homepage) and adopting a fresh design that will give our content more room to breathe. The site will be supported by improved technology that should provide a more robust audio service and will deliver more consistent navigation around the site. So there's a good match between these improvements, the issues your feedback raises and our own aspirations for the progress of the service.

This week we're analysing the results of our user- testing of the new site. I'm encouraged that initial reactions seem to be positive from regular and lighter users but we will doubtless be making some tweaks to the work we've done. I'll then give you a preview of the new page designs and features next week.

One last important point: this relaunch is a milestone in our redevelopment of Radio 4's web service but we don't intend to wait another 7 years before developing further. There will be more to do to improve the site and it will serve as the foundation for some exciting new features and programme sites that we hope to launch during the next year and beyond. I'll look forward to your comments once we've relaunched, which will help us to improve the service as we go forward.

• This is Leigh's first post about the redesign. Here is the second.

Tomorrow's programme at 1030 - Baseball and Me - presented by historian and man of letters Simon Schama took well over three years to happen. It's in two parts - the second part is in the same slot the following week. It .

I knew Simon shared my mania for baseball - and in particular - from my time as a student in Boston in the late 70s - where Simon was a junior (if already obviously destined to be senior) History Professor at Harvard. Every time I have met him since we have ended up discussing baseball with embarrassing intensity. So soon after I became Controller of Radio 4 I suggested he should register his obsession - and in addition provide a glimpse into the culture of baseball - the folklore, the literary stars who have written about it, the way it grips a large part of the USA during the summer.

Simon said yes... but this proved to be no more than an opening gambit. Getting the diary space to give this monumentally important topic (sic) the full attention that it deserves took forever - during which time the Red Sox did very well indeed. Simon was distracted by such small matters as a TV series or two on art, some academic books, a recent Ö÷²¥´óÐã 2 series on America, commenting on the rise of Barack Obama. (He told me about him four years ago). But finally he was lashed to the task.

The programmes - I should cheer you up - will not assume any knowledge about baseball.

There is a wider question about the role of sport on Radio 4. We should (I know) have a Radio 4-shaped sports programme. We had one for many years on Saturday mornings (Sport on 4 - presented by the estimable ) but that looked odd when 5 Live was invented - and we have not really managed anything sustained since.

• The of the Boston Red Sox
• Peter "Doctor Baseball" C. Bjarkman's list of
• A comprehensive from The New York Times
• Phill Jupitus, another Red Sox fan, in The Telegraph
• A remarkable audio recording of a , Joe DiMaggio playing centerfield for The Yankees, from .
• The , recording the moment in 2004 when the '' was finally lifted.

The , showing the 1911 Boston Red Sox in Spring training, is from the .

Radio 4 has always tried to do something for Comic Relief... but in truth we have not been at the centre of the Ö÷²¥´óÐã's fundraising effort and, in the run up to the night, Radio 1 is the main radio partner of the big Ö÷²¥´óÐã1 programme. But we've always done our bit to raise awareness of Comic Relief every time it comes around - and some good radio has come out of it. In 2005 we ran a competition involving The Archers which culminated with Victoria Wood playing a part in a special edition and last time (in 2007) listeners selected a man (Andy Hamilton) to present a Red Nose Day edition of Woman's Hour.

This year the Radio Comedy department came up with something different - and probably the best thing we've done for Comic Relief since its inception: Stand-up With the Stars. We paired four Radio 4 heavyweight presenters (Evan Davis, Libby Purves, Peter White and Laurie Taylor) with four celebrated stand-up comedians (Paul Merton, Shappi Khorsandi, Josie Long and Milton Jones). Each of the presenters gets coached and then has to perform a routine.

And then, after the second epsiode you (the audience) get to vote (and donate) to decide the best act which will be announced on the Now Show. A terrific idea. We've scheduled the programmes in a slightly unusual way too.

The real R4 philanthropy comes every Christmas from the appeal to raise money for the for work with homeless people which also makes grants to people across the UK. This Christmas over £725,000 was raised and the weekly Radio 4 Appeal - which publicises a different cause every week - raises a similar amount across the year. A terrific amount - with a lot less profile and publicity than surrounds the big pan-Ö÷²¥´óÐã events (Comic Relief and Children in Need). Thank you to all who gave - and I hope you both laugh and donate for the current R4 Comic Relief enterprise.

• The Stand-up With the Stars web site has some lovely videos of the stars' performances
  
• The Ö÷²¥´óÐã Charity Appeals web site
• A useful at The British Comedy Guide